In his appearance on Squawk on the Street on Tuesday, Jim Cramer continued to heap praise on banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM). He has discussed the bank’s valuation multiple several times in 2026. For instance, in January, he commented that “I looked at the Charitable Trust names such as, and I also looked at JPMorgan and Citigroup, and based on their valuations, these stocks are still outrageously cheap versus the rest of the market.” However, Cramer’s focus on the multiple extends beyond that. In November 2025, the CNBC TV host commented on JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) and outlined a “begrudging recognition that we have to start paying more than 15 times earnings for JPMorgan. Even if it is at it’s high.” With the second quarter of 2026 now underway, Cramer continues to believe that a forward P/E multiple of 15 is a bargain:
“Look I’m listening to our friend Will Frost, interview with Jamie Dimon. Didn’t know that his [Dimon’s] brother was a physicist. . .and I say to my myself, you know what, you can buy his stock for fifteen times earnings. He’s one of the brightest guys in the world, Jamie. And his team, is filled with brilliant people. Fifteen times? I’ll take it.”
Cramer’s optimism about JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) isn’t unmerited considering the firm’s second quarter earnings report released on July 14th. The results saw the bank post $58 billion in revenue, which beat analyst estimates of $51.35 billion. Additionally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) also posted a record profit of $21.2 billion, which enabled its adjusted profit-per-share of $6.14 to beat analyst estimates of $5.85.
Cramer specifically discussed Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) ahead of the first quarter earnings season in April and couldn’t hold back with the praise:
“Tuesday’s the first chock-full day of earnings season. It’s got three major banks: JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup. Now, they each have their own characteristics… Citi is now love, love, love by everybody on Wall Street, and it’s the stock that I think is probably the most likely to jump higher next week. It’s like a, yeah, it’s, it’s like a trained rabbit… I don’t know how that happens. It keeps happening. The estimates are always too low. People like the stock of Citi.”
Similarly, like Cramer, RBC Capital is also quite optimistic about JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM). It raised the share price target to $370 from $330 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. The financial firm remarked that the bank benefited from strong capital markets performance in its latest earnings report and added that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) would also benefit from the Basel-III endgame proposal. During Q2, the bank’s markets revenue grew by 35% to $12.1 billion while investment banking fees jumped to $3.3 billion.
Shifting towards hedge funds, the number of hedge funds that held JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)’s shares remained the same during Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, according to Insider Monkey’s data. During both quarters, 131 funds held the shares, while the number of funds in our database dropped from 1,041 to 1,022. Some notable funds that hold the stock as of Q1 are Fisher Asset Management and D E Shaw. Among these, the latter bumped its stake up by 725% during the period. On the other hand, in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, 115 and 106 hedge funds held a stake in Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), with Fisher Asset Management and Harris Associates having sizable stakes.
While we acknowledge the potential of JPM to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than JPM and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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